Parents are being warned that this could pose a risk to youngsters and leave them exposed to predators.

An example of Snapchat's new 'Snap Map' - the blue icons on the map show where 'snaps' have been posted (Image: Aidan McCartney)

Facebook page Social+ issued this warning: “Snapchat has introduced a new tracker in the update where you can view the exact location of your friends.

“It can give you the area, town, and street and if you zoom in enough, it shows the house on the street layout.

“Please share this to make people are aware, Snapchat has a lot of young users on, if your children are on please check that they have their location set to ‘ghost mode’, that way no one can see where they are.

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“To do this make sure app is the updated version and go to selfie mode on the camera. Then zoom out. It will give you the option of changing to who can see your location.”

The photo and video-sharing app has more than 55 million users in Europe and 10 million daily users in the UK.

Rival photo-sharing app Instagram already uses a mapping feature, which enables users to see content based on where it was posted.

Snapchat Spectacles (Image: Snapchat)

Instagram and fellow Facebook-owned apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger have placed increasing pressure on Snapchat in recent months - adding features to their own platforms similar to that of Snapchat.

Snapchat’s parent company Snap Inc recently launched its first hardware product in the UK - video-enabled glasses called Spectacles, which record 10-second clips and save them to a user’s Snapchat account so they can be shared with friends.